Why Sid Meier's Civ is the best 4X game and others fall behind and what GalCiv could learn (let's talk 4X)

When I read GalCiv thinking of what is 4X strategy game in this article, I understood why GalCiv, although being a great game, still falls behind Sid Meier's Civilization. It is because they do not understand the greatest advantage that Civ has compared to GalCiv - as it is written by Draginol in his article "what is a 4x strategy game" - they think that eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate phases follow each other consequently - when one phase ends, the next begins.

This thinking is completely wrong and Sid Meiers Civilization proves that! The secret advantage that Civ has is that they make those 4X work simultaneously!

As I have already commented in this article, "It is the mix of those 4 EXes that compliment each other and that makes the game exciting, when those 4 work SIMULTANEOUSLY. This is why [early game is so interesting - because all 4eXes at the beginning are there and have not ended yet and] late game currently becomes far less interesting - because there is only 1 (!!!) EX left and that is EXtermination. But imagine if my proposal was there - if even in late stages there still was EXploration and EXpansion possible (and thus EXploitation, logically). It could be entirely different experience than that of now existing when all that is left in late stages is to manage monster fleets in monster maps.

Here is how those 4X work simultaneously for Sid Meier's Civ, throughout the whole game session:

eXploration: revealing map is only the initial phase of eXploration and even this first step is not without its challenges as barbarians always pose danger to scouts. But as time goes on, there are new and new things to explore - the strategic resources being the most obvious. Those reveal with time and effort and have huge impact in the game. It can be said, that the exploration of strategic resources is a way to continue eXploration phase throughout the whole game, because strategic meaning of the map changes. Not completely but in a balanced way, notably. The same applies to archeological ruins and, to some extent, the Compass technology, when players are able to travel ocean tiles. Since unability to travel the ocean in initial phase postpone the eXploration, there are multiple levels of eXploration that makes it a race to compete in and that have duration longer than just initial phase - eXploration takes place in multiple levels throughout the whole game. The child in us wants to explore with wonder, be amazed with new possibilities the toys/game map has, time and time again. And Civ gives us that the best way they can come up. But GalCiv... Heh... Exploration ends as soon as 1st ship travels through fog of war...

eXpansion: again, claiming territory is not a phase that starts at one point and ends in another, just to let the next phase begin. The cities grow the whole time, throughout the game in Sid Meiers Civilization, making eXpansion a phase that work simultaneously with other three X phases, throughout the whole game. Obviously, growing a city is completely different from growing/building a planet in GalCiv where a planet consists of flat, buildable tiles. Yes, there is a growing/eXpansion aspect and tile bonuses add a little spice, but it falls far behind from that Civ has, where you have multiple, MULTIPLE factors that take part into city development. In Civ, a city truly eXpands. For GalCivs planet it is less so, because number of tiles is predefined, the tiles are even in nature, understandably(?) you do not have to compete for planet tiles with neighbour civilizations and fewer factors take part in development in general.

eXploitation: obviously, eXploitation is a progressive phase in Civ when you can improve the improvements throughout the whole game, no matter if they are city districts or casual tile improvements. The same can be said for GalCiv's starbases. But, obviously and unfortunately Sid Meiers Civ is far better in its variety. In Civ you can "eXploit" [improve] just about anything, while in GalCiv you improve starbases that eXploit only strategic resources (durantium, thulium, antimatter, prometheon or etherium). Planetary resources has recently being added with Crusade, but even those cannot challenge the variety that can be improved in Civ. Yes, you can build different kind of starbases that give you bonuses, but I do not consider that eXploitation the same way a tile is eXploited/improved in Civ.

eXterminate: well, yes, that can progessively go on the whole time for sure, in all games, no matter be it Civ, GalCiv or else. And players abuse this option to full extent not necessarily because they prefer it, but also because it is the only option left in the late stages. Unfortunately.

I think I have made my main point why Civ is a game so good others can only aspire to - it is because in Civ all those 4 eXes work SIMULTANEOUSLY, an advantage that no other game has perfected so well than Civ.

Why this post is in the "Future ideas"? Because there is a space to improve GalCiv, no matter how good we value it already. And, perhaps, there is a thing or 2 that GalCiv devs could learn from the best 4X strategy game there is - Sid Meiers Civ.

Planet (including dead) eXploration? Nebulae eXploration? There are plenty of room to invent not-so-hard-to-do features, that would change now existing 4X order to simultaneous 4X. It takes some effort, but it is possible for GalCiv to SURPASS the all time leader, the Civ, both in sales and fanbase.

Well all Civ games don`t have anything like the customisability of GalCiv 3. Also the recent Civ games especially Civ6 suffer from rampant sjw/feminist political correctness which is beginning to destroy good games; GalCiv 3 is beginning to suffer a bit from that too. Hopefully they can steer away from that. Again a lot of this is alleviated by the the sheer customisation options of GalCiv3.

All Civ 5 and 6 have going for it is it`s based on reality (familiar history) which becomes less and less true with each version they released due to `pc`.

I agree that the Civ franchise has created some good games in its entirety but none of them were without faults and this iteration of GalCiv in particular has a long way to go before it matures, potentially into something splendid.

I especially liked Civ2 and Civ4 (never tried Civ1).

But while Civ2 has a sensible combat structure (except that a battleship can potentially be sunk by a fortified phalanx on a mountain) the AI was perforce insectoid.

Civ3 had some horrible faults including a ridiculous distance penalty for cities far from the capital and cities revolting, just after being captured and killing all the many units inside.

Civ4 has a much better AI (I think of small and furry but potentially vicious mammals) and is a really hard and interesting game but the combat mechanics are pretty dismal.

Civ6 has a really good strategic mode to see what's going on but, as Triple_Crown alluded, has some remarkable design decisions about diplomacy and in particular warmongering. Unless this has now been fixed, after starting a war or indeed being forced into one by an enemy, you accrue huge warmonger penalties every time you keep a captured city and don't public spiritedly (and with shining historical verisimitude) immediately return it to its previous owner.

So yes, Galciv can take some things from Civ but putting the latter on a pedestal is perhaps pushing it.

as someone who has played the civ series from the beginning, i can see a couple things in regards to exploration

you can explore without fear as you never have to worry about your scout ships getting harmed. pirates here in galciv should really use a pic of a big fluffy kitten, because thats about how "dangerous" they are. LOL I would like the option to turn pirates into something dangerous like in the early phases of civ6 with its barbarians. and for them to be pro-active in being annoying, and still have small isolated pockets of them later into the game, like civ6.

also, maybe another layer of space to explore that unlocks when you reach a certain tech level. maybe it is the home space of pirates

Shawn12, perhaps it makes complete sense that in space there are lot of safe places which is contrary to the earth in pre-histeric era where you could get dead in just about everywhere. But, yes, I agree with you that eXploration could be made more difficult.

One thing that could add to difficulty in GalCiv3 may be the space itself It should and could be so vast that it may take considerable effort to explore it before you meet someone.

Ofcourse you could just put fewer players in the map and have the desired effect but I think thats upside down of what I am proposing: simply make those engine speeds a lot harder to develop. So a player who invests in engines can have an advantage. This effect actually is there - the speeds being just 2 hexes at the very beginning. The problem is that there are shortcuts to exploration the mercenaries being the first "helper"/ruiner of exploration phase. Purchase Ponsophicon or other large radar mercenary for 1000 credits which is free of cost compared to what it gives and here you have all the map on plain sight.

Those ships could have been somewhat slower - it would only add to the eXploration phase is what I am saying.

Of course, CIV made a few mistakes in its series -- the worst one was when Sid decided no-one was interested in large maps when he created CIV3. I still like CIV2 the best, but since it is unplayable on current levels of Window I occasionally play my second favorite level, CIV5. I have tried CIV6 and find it my least favorite. I even prefer (and play in a DOSBOX) the original CIV (available from Steam) to CIV3 and CIV6. Now, if I could just get a playable remake of CIV2 on Steam.

Civ 5 was ok in terms of gameplay but a technical nightmare, the turn times on bigger maps are really bad and the AI is mediocre at best.

Civ 6 I don't even know how it is on the technical side because it was not fun at all for me so I didn't play it long enough, the policy system is crap and reminds me of the wheel in Galciv3, you can always change it and so you have to adjust it to what you are doing anyway to receive the proper bonuses.

I think the big advantage of civ and why it is so popular is the going through history thing, gameplay wise beyond earth shows that there is not that much to it otherwise.

- Make nebulae bigger, hide some goodies (special resources, abandoned starbases, ship wrecks, planets without star, entire solar systems, pirate bases, black market for buying and selling resources etc.) in there and set up a tech requirement to even enter them. Make it dangerous to cross them, depending on tech level. Change visibility logic so that you cannot see what is more than one or two hexes (or whatever you sensor tech level allows) inside a nebula from the outside.

- Set up a tech requirement to go near black holes where you could also find ship wrecks and the like that is slowly sucked in by the singularity. That would require Antimatter to be farther apart from the center to not cripple missle technology. Make it dangerous to go near the center, depending on tech level.

- Make it dagerous to fly through asteroid fields, but give ships a chance to discover something in there (again ship wrecks, pirate stashes, precursor ruins, refugees with tech knowledge, special resources etc.).

And related:

- Make GC III less generic. Introduce story: let an extra-galactic power with an own agenda appear from time to time, attacking ships and planets, but also do more obscure things (related by events) and let the player find out what they are up to, since when ignored they become a real threat.

- For modding purposes introduce an event system that can use state variables so that modders can tell their own stories and mark progress by setting those state variables so that events can be scripted dependent on state.

When I read GalCiv thinking of what is 4X strategy game in this article, I understood why GalCiv, although being a great game, still falls behind Sid Meier's Civilization. It is because they do not understand the greatest advantage that Civ has compared to GalCiv - as it is written by Draginol in his article "what is a 4x strategy game" - they think that eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate phases follow each other consequently - when one phase ends, the next begins.

This thinking is completely wrong and Sid Meiers Civilization proves that! The secret advantage that Civ has is that they make those 4X work simultaneously!

As I have already commented in this article, "It is the mix of those 4 EXes that compliment each other and that makes the game exciting, when those 4 work SIMULTANEOUSLY. This is why [early game is so interesting - because all 4eXes at the beginning are there and have not ended yet and] late game currently becomes far less interesting - because there is only 1 (!!!) EX left and that is EXtermination. But imagine if my proposal was there - if even in late stages there still was EXploration and EXpansion possible (and thus EXploitation, logically). It could be entirely different experience than that of now existing when all that is left in late stages is to manage monster fleets in monster maps.

Here is how those 4X work simultaneously for Sid Meier's Civ, throughout the whole game session:

eXploration: revealing map is only the initial phase of eXploration and even this first step is not without its challenges as barbarians always pose danger to scouts. But as time goes on, there are new and new things to explore - the strategic resources being the most obvious. Those reveal with time and effort and have huge impact in the game. It can be said, that the exploration of strategic resources is a way to continue eXploration phase throughout the whole game, because strategic meaning of the map changes. Not completely but in a balanced way, notably. The same applies to archeological ruins and, to some extent, the Compass technology, when players are able to travel ocean tiles. Since unability to travel the ocean in initial phase postpone the eXploration, there are multiple levels of eXploration that makes it a race to compete in and that have duration longer than just initial phase - eXploration takes place in multiple levels throughout the whole game. The child in us wants to explore with wonder, be amazed with new possibilities the toys/game map has, time and time again. And Civ gives us that the best way they can come up. But GalCiv... Heh... Exploration ends as soon as 1st ship travels through fog of war...

I have a pocket dimension idea with it's own map. I would suggest reloading so you don't have stability problems.

eXpansion: again, claiming territory is not a phase that starts at one point and ends in another, just to let the next phase begin. The cities grow the whole time, throughout the game in Sid Meiers Civilization, making eXpansion a phase that work simultaneously with other three X phases, throughout the whole game.

This is vague, if you are talking about having open borders to move through one's territory, or large empire penalty next to eliminating citizens or not let you allocate spending anymore those two are the biggest mistakes they made. These four things are game breakers. Lets not forget about small maps while you are at that. I would like to hear your disagreements here. My guess your not a long time civ fan here.

eXploitation: obviously, eXploitation is a progressive phase in Civ when you can improve the improvements throughout the whole game, no matter if they are city districts or casual tile improvements. The same can be said for GalCiv's starbases. But, obviously and unfortunately Sid Meiers Civ is far better in its variety. In Civ you can "eXploit" [improve] just about anything, while in GalCiv you improve starbases that eXploit only strategic resources (durantium, thulium, antimatter, prometheon or etherium). Planetary resources has recently being added with Crusade,

Actually they had planetary resources since I've been playing Dark Avatar in 2007. What three brought is a better look, and more variety to planetary resources; also, gave you a picture of the resource to look at. What crusade required you to improve the tile like civilization.

but even those cannot challenge the variety that can be improved in Civ. Yes, you can build different kind of starbases that give you bonuses,

The only difference here that instead of saying improve civilizations names the type of improvement, and doesn't let you use another improvement. The city screen instead of giving you numbers gives you pictures to count on the screen. moot.

but I do not consider that eXploitation the same way a tile is eXploited/improved in Civ

Now about this point I agree with my interpretation of this. I like in galactic civilizations how I can build multiples of the same building you cannot do this in civilization in the same city, or planet. What I would like to see changed in galactic civilizations here is on the last terraform tech it is unlimited where you can teriform all the land tiles unless you research aquatic colonization then you can terraform aquatic tiles.

I think I have made my main point why Civ is a game so good others can only aspire to - it is because in Civ all those 4 eXes work SIMULTANEOUSLY, an advantage that no other game has perfected so well than Civ.

Civilization 4 with it's expansions I'm all there with you, But civilization 5 and 6 has destroyed the franchise.

admiral, you are going into very specific details that were meant only to describe, to better illustrate my main point - that Civs advantage is that their 4 eXes work simultaneously, whereas GalCivs - consequently.

I was attempting to prove that this is a MAJOR difference between the two games, where Civ IN THIS ASPECT wins. I do not want to say that Civ is a better game in every way - that would be LUDICROUS to say.

I agree that the Civ franchise has created some good games in its entirety but none of them were without faults and this iteration of GalCiv in particular has a long way to go before it matures, potentially into something splendid.

I especially liked Civ2 and Civ4 (never tried Civ1).

Played call to power 1 I thought it was civilization 1 does that count. I played freeciv it's kink of like civilization 2 with the engine of one. Reversed engineered.of course. I lived civilization 3 with all it's expansion packs. I liked civilization 4 with the first, and last iteration. I played five it killed the franchise.

Civ3 had some horrible faults including a ridiculous distance penalty for cities far from the capital and cities revolting, just after being captured and killing all the many units inside.

Ok I could see this on earth, but in space it would make sense that earth would do better than it's colonies. I like revolutions they had it in Dark Avatar can we bring this back. This would encourage you to build morale improvements more. Maybe the Krynn, Thalans, and Yor less likely to revolt. Civ3 introduced things like requiring resources to connect to other resources, three kinds of resources, small wonders, and leaders. Optional ways to win a game. Time limit games. Different techs for different nationalities. Specialised units. Types of civilizations.

Civ4 has a much better AI (I think of small and furry but potentially vicious mammals) and is a really hard and interesting game but the combat mechanics are pretty dismal.

Again not a combat game. They got rid of leaders and replaced it with great people. Now instead of being civilization it became civilization and leader based wish galactic civilizations would pick this up. Civics. Now instead of connecting a road to a resource you have to build a building. The tech tree changed here with multiple paths to the same tech. Specialised buildings. Corporations. Random events. Abilities when leveling up units. Animals. Now barbarians states. Civics the greatest thing I seen.

Disadvantages include closed borders, small maps, and a large empire penalty. Ai great.

[/quote]No one cares about graphics that doesn't affect the game you need more than this. Now the things I noticed right away killed the game. Taking a step backward with ideologies didn't really kill the game, but getting rid of citizens, and spending allocation did.

admiral, you are going into very specific details that were meant only to describe, to better illustrate my main point - that Civs advantage is that their 4 eXes work simultaneously, whereas GalCivs - consequently.

I was attempting to prove that this is a MAJOR difference between the two games, where Civ IN THIS ASPECT wins. I do not want to say that Civ is a better game in every way - that would be LUDICROUS to say.

As a long time Civ addict, I find that GC3 has surpassed Civ6 in pleasing gameplay. Civ reached a certain peak at Civ4. For me. Civ5 is the best looking and most pleasing to play but the AI is flawed. Crusade is still getting better and better in general, although I am greedy and always want more eye candy. Workshop submissions and mods help. I have also gotten into some ship designing, which I didn't do in GC2, which adds a lot of immersion, personal investment and fiddle-around game play value. That is something Civ cannot offer.

But it all comes down to AI. AI is a majorly subjective topic, but I think Crusade is edging out any version of Civ on that factor. This looks to continue through Stardock's development cycle and give GC3 a definitive lead on that subject.

All other 4X games are pale derivatives of these two. I never even feel tempted by them. I am not only addicted to a specific drug, 4X, I am addicted to two specific chemists.

it all comes down to AI. I think Crusade is edging out any version of Civ on that factor. This looks to continue through Stardock's development cycle and give GC3 a definitive lead on that subject.

Would be hard to find lot of players who would disagree. Stardock has put effort to AI and multicore engine and I really hope players will appreciate that as MUCH as it deserves. It is not immediately apparent but its extremly important and Civ devs could learn here, thats 4 sho.

The problem with a lot of strategy games these days is that they add multi-player. Once they do that, they don't have to worry about an AI, they can just say - "well, play a person, that will be a challenge." I feel that's what kills good turn based strategy games, or any game - Stellaris being the worst culprit.

One of favorite 4x games, and it is a real-time game, is Distant Worlds: Universe which has no multiplayer which allowed the designers to focus on features that make the game deeper and more interesting - regardless of balancing act needed to make MP players happy. I'm not saying that GalCiv3 is bad because of multiplayer (my understanding is that it is kinda broke at the moment) but I am saying Civ 6 and Stellaris are bad because of multiplayer. And hell, I'll add HOI4, which is just bad - but not necessarily due to multiplayer.

GalCiv 3 is a deeper strategy game than all those, there is just more you can do with this game. But one problem with GalCiv3 is that all these different elements do not work well together at the moment. And this is where I agree with the OP, if GalCiv3 could combine these 4x elements so they are experienced simultaneous, it could be one of the richest and most immersive games ever made. Then, go ahead and fix multiplayer.

I'll just throw out there that I'm probably about the only person in the 4x universe that just never really got into Civ at all. Tried several (including the original) and just never really liked them very much. GC2 on the other hand is one of my most favorite games of all times. On the one hand I think that a fantasy setting is a better format than "real life" (because there's always plenty to complain about the inaccuracies with real life", but on another level I think GC2 was just a much better game than the entire civ franchise..

I'll just throw out there that I'm probably about the only person in the 4x universe that just never really got into Civ at all. Tried several (including the original) and just never really liked them very much.

You aren't alone. I've seen some let's plays of the various civ games and I just prefer the space setting.